Gurriers (47 page)

Aidan called me to the hatch at twenty five to three. “Whenever ye’re ready, I have one in IT Solutions going to Dundrum. I’m goin to load ye up as much as I can goin’ high an’ hopefully leh ye finish up then.”

“Fair play to ye, Aidan! I appreciate that!” And I did too! I had expected to be sent north or west for him to get two runs out of me for the afternoon because I was going early. This
was an unsurpassed level of niceness and decency from Bollicky Balls!

I got home at twenty past four and hung up the four “Helmets must be removed” signs that I had acquired during the day in the filthiest spots on the corridor wall and galloped upstairs with loads of time to do what I had left to do.

I strolled into Eirtail at twenty five past five in my best suit (well, it was my only suit- but it was a good one!). It was a crisp October afternoon but I wore no overcoat. We were going to taxi everywhere!

I made it all the way over to the reception desk before Jenny realised who I was.

“Oh my God! You look so different!” Jenny exclaimed.

I had pondered several minutes before opting for the suit. Jenny had only ever seen me in motorbike gear, so the difference was bound to have enormous impact; but Jenny was used to seeing fruits in suits all day every day and maybe she agreed to go out with me because I was so different to the norm, in which case the suit could easily have a negative effect. I decided to go with the suit because I hadn’t worn it in ages and I looked damn good in it when I put it on.

“Different ‘fabulous’ or different ‘overdressed’?”

“Different ‘wow’!” she said.

“Amazing what a scrub and a bit of well-tailored cloth can do for one’s appearance all the same, isn’t it? Don’t worry, though, the rough gruff biker is still under here somewhere! Are you ready to go?”

We got a taxi up to the Deer Park Hotel and Restaurant, just off Roebuck Road in Clonskeagh, had a lovely meal and enjoyed each other’s company for the entire evening.

Jenny was a sweet girl with a good sense of humour and a certain mysterious shyness about her. Despite getting on like a house on fire, something told me that I wouldn’t be taking her home with me tonight. I resigned myself not to even try but to make sure to make another date before this one was over. I
didn’t mention hash, pills or any drug taking, mostly because the topic never came up and is best cautiously approached with strangers but also because she didn’t smoke cigarettes. Besides, I was truly gumming for a joint, more and more with each pint, and discussing it could lead to me cracking and skinning up in the toilets or something.

It was as much my urge for cannabis as anything else that led me to declare the end of the proceedings at half tennish, quoting “school night” and “need lots of sleep in my job” as my reasons. The confused look on her face was replaced with a smile when I asked whether she had any plans for the following evening.

“There’s a club up our way called Sally Longs, that I always meet a few girl friends in on Fridays.”

“Super. I’ll meet you there about nine!”

She was from Rathfarnham, which meant that my place was on the way in the taxi. I turned and gave her a long lingering look across the back seat as the taxi came to a halt. She looked particularly appealing, through a combination of beer goggles and the sweet sorrow of parting.

“Thanks for a lovely evening, Jenny. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow night.” I leaned across slowly, without breaking eye contact, and touched my lips against hers, positioning my arms for the embrace that would follow, should she respond. She did and we slipped into a full-blown, passionate, tightly squeezing kissing embrace, which only ended reluctantly after the taxi man’s third deliberate cough.

We were both smiling as we slowly separated. It was on the tip of my tongue to invite her in for a drink but I managed to enforce silence upon myself. Better to say goodnight and leave the impression of being a mysterious gentleman type than to ask an awkward question that might embarrass her. Besides, Vinno would be in smoking joints and as yet, I had no idea of her position on the matter. The conversation of the evening, although pleasant and amusing, had not covered a lot beyond the basics that two strangers find out about each other on their first date. Not that this was a problem - a gentle exchange yielding little
information is always preferable to interrogation-type encounters that yield lots.

“I had a lovely evening too, Sean. You’re different than I expected you to be.”

“Different ‘interesting’, or different ‘strange’?”

“Different ‘wow’!”

This, of course, led to another kiss and some further coughing by the driver. She giggled deliciously as we shared a raised eyeball gesture towards him.

“Here you go, mate. That should cover the meter until you drop the lady off and leave some left over for yourself.”

“Cheers.”

“Maybe you should get yourself some lozenges or something - ease that tickly throat of yours a bit. See you tomorrow, sweetheart!” I departed with a wink while closing the door.

The next mission was to get out of the suit without being spotted by Vinno. I opened the front door as quietly as I could and was dismayed to see Ray’s bike tucked in behind Vinno’s, which was for once behind mine because of my early finish. This doubled my chances of having to answer many questions about my night out, and added Ray’s perspective to the penalty.

By the time I had squeezed past the three bikes (making sure not to rub the good suit off the walls) I could hear the murmur of conversation coming from the living room. By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs I could hear the television in the background also, but faint enough for me to decide that the door was closed. All I had to do was to get up the stairs, around the return, up the last few steps and into my room before one of them decided to leave the living room.

The door burst open at the worst possible time and I was caught on the top step of the first stairs.

“What the fuck? Vinno, James fuckin’ Bond is creeping around you gaff.”

“You scared the shit out of me there, Ray, ye little bollix! Is that a joint? Giz a blast.”

“Fuckin’ hell! Look at you! What’s with the get up, man?”

“Just an old school reunion thing down in Blackrock. I
wore the suit so they’d be even more surprised that I’m now a courier.”

“Or to pretend tha’ ye’re noh!” Vinno seemed to pick up on the fact that I wasn’t telling the truth and came to his own conclusions about the dishonesty.

His inaccuracy, however, left me with an avenue of righteous outburst. “And why would I want to do that? I’m a courier by choice and I’m fuckin’ proud that I’ve lasted as long as I have and that I’m doing so well in this tough job. I was in a room full of people tonight that believe that they’re the leaders of the future and I held my head high and told them in a loud and clear voice what I do for a living and do you know why? Because even though you need fuck all education for this job, there wasn’t one fucker in that company that would be able to do what I do, the way I do it. All of us should be proud of our occupations for that very same reason, now gimme a drag outta that joint because I’ve been gummin’ for a smoke all fuckin’ night!”

“And what’s the big idea with the signs on the walls downstairs?” Vinno’s changing of the subject was like a concession that he had been wrong to doubt me.

I answered his question with more than a trace of drunken cockiness. “If the bastards are goin’ to bark orders at us they could at least say fuckin’ please! I think they look kinda funny also; maybe we could get the whole surface of the walls covered in them.”

“Ye’d geh sacked for strokin’ signs owa offices!”

“Only if ye get caught! Besides if we only took the ones that didn’t say “please” and we got caught we would have a kinda of excuse that the lack of manners pissed us off!”

“We? Us?”

“All of us! Let’s take contributions in the form of signs from all the amigos who come here to join our company and partake of our hospitality. Provided it’s Okay with you, of course!”

“Yeah, I suppose so. It can’t really make it look any worse down there!”

“Nice one! I’m sure it’ll look cool by the time we’re finished!”

“Speakin’ of finished, are ye gonna smoke the whole fuckin joint or wha’?”

“Sorry, man, here ye go.”

Friday was a much better day than Thursday. The runs came in straight lines with clicks everywhere. Aidan didn’t send me north once, which was great (with Tramp gone, my old dislike of the northside came back with a vengeance) and by the time we converged around the base that evening, I had 32 mileage jobs done, the last of which was an overnight to leave in the base for England, though I would rather not have had to go to the base this particular evening. That’s a good day’s work for any courier, let alone a courier that was still really a beginner. And a distracted beginner at that! Having played the gentleman with Jenny on our first date and increasing the chance of a result on our second, I was as horny as I had been in a long while all day. I just couldn’t stop thinking about sex! Three times I caught myself grinding my almost perpetual erection against reception desks in offices!

“Everyone ready to go?” Naoise put out the last joint and grabbed his helmet off his right mirror.

This was the moment that I’d been dreading. “I’m not going to the local tonight, lads.”

“Ye woh? You always go to the bleedin’ local, Shy Boy! Wot’s keepin’ ye away from us tonie?”

“Family bash out southside.”

“Wot family bash? How come ye never mentioned ih to me?”

For the first time ever I had been sorry to see that Vinno was at the base and with good cause! “You’re my landlord, Vinno, not my keeper! It’s nothing anyway, just my sister’s birthday, but her feelings will be hurt if I don’t make it out.”

“Sister? Is she nice? How old is she?”

“Fuck off, Ray.”

“Sure ye’ll come for one anyway.”

“I can’t, Naoise; it’s a meal and the table’s booked.”

“Meal where?”

“That Spanish place in Monkstown.”

“What time?”

“Eight.”

“Sure ye’ve loadsa time to have a quick one with us!”

“And not get home and cleaned and off the bike!”

At this stage there were five of them around me, taking turns to bombard me with questions.

“Are ye gonna wear your suit?” Ray was quick to pounce on me with that one. The bastard!

“No Ray.”

“What suit?”

“Ye shoulda seen the fucker las’ nie; double 0 seven Shy Boy in the tin o’ fruit. An’ he gor up in front of a loada other suits an’ told them all a’ the top of his voice tha’ he was a courier now. Dincha Shy Boy?”

“Er…not really like that. It was a just an old class reunion. I knew everybody there.”

“Maybe he’s goin’ ou’ wi’ all his old classmates tonie instead of drinkin’ wi’ us scumbags!”

“No way, Mick! I’d much rather go out with the lads. Last night was a crap and boring night and tonight ‘s not going to be much better.”

Then it hit me. Oh my God! Imagine if by some twist of fate that Jenny had decided to come to my place of work this evening to surprise me and had just walked into the yard behind me in time to hear that sentence! I couldn’t help but cast a nervous glance in the direction of the gate. Of course Jenny wasn’t there but my workmates picked up on the dodgy glance.

“Are ye fuckin’ expectin’ someone?”

“No, no, I thought I heard a bike, that’s all.”

“Something’s very fuckin’ fishy here, Shy Boy.” Mick said.

“Just your underpants, Mick!”

“Fuck it! Ten past six. I’ve a few people to see before I can get beer into me. I’ll see yiz all - ‘cep you- in the boozer.”

“See ya later, Shy Boy.”

“Enjoy yer meal.”

“See ya back in the gaff.” Vinno said.

I stayed in the yard until they were all gone before getting on my bike. As bad as the interrogation had been, I felt full sure that it would have been much, much worse if they knew that I was going to a club that night with a receptionist known to them all.

A decision to come clean with Vinno the following day helped me push my guilt about lying to the boys to the back of my head and concentrate on my mission: bringing my newly reacquainted libido to a club to meet a beautiful lady. The most important thing - as with most missions - was to stay focussed on my goal.

I have to say that I played a stormer that night. I arrived sober and well dressed, charmed every one of her girlfriends, complimented her about anything and everything every now and then over the course of the entire evening. I told her lots of things that she wanted to hear, made plenty of playful eye contact, lots of witty remarks and even the occasional cheeky stolen peck as the night wore on.

Towards the end of the evening I perfectly timed an excursion to the gents so that we bumped into each other in the corridor as she was returning from the ladies, away from the watchful eyes of her friends and their companions (who, in my opinion, all paled in comparison to me). All it took was the correct eye contact, a little smile and a slight leaning movement towards her for us to melt into an embrace even more passionate than the goodbye of our previous date.